From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #508 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Wednesday, November 7 2001 Volume 01 : Number 508 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:13:34 -0700 From: "Brown" Subject: [AML] American Books (was: AML Writer's Conference) American Books is one person. And she was there. She gets freelance people all over the country to help her. She has a good idea. I think she is well acquainted with the internet. She wants to know who the writers are in this area. I think she's smart. But so is my CEO. And he has a WAREHOUSE and sales people that I know and love! Marilyn - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 11:53:47 -0500 From: "Tracie Laulusa" Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff Hey chill woman. I didn't say you couldn't like seminary donuts. I said it made me gag. Lots of people adore seminary donuts. It crossed my e-mail no fewer than 11 times. I have never labeled anything spiritual pornography. I didn't even label it fluff. I certainly didn't label it a lie. I was commenting on a comment of Jacob's about the violin poem, which he and several others don't like but I do. As I said. There's just no accounting for tastes. Write whatever pleases you by all means. But you've been around the writing world long enough to know that nothing is going to suit everyone. How boring that would be. "Oh, I just love that. Don't you just love it?" "Yes, of course, I just love it. Why wouldn't I love it?" We all make judgements. It's part of life. It would be a really sorry world if we didn't all have the opportunity to choose for ourselves. But saying "To me this was fluff." And saying "I think the anonymous author so-and-so is going to reap and eternity of hellfire and damnation" are two different things. I really love a quote from Madeliene L'Engle which I don't have word for word right now. She talks about growing up and discussions around the dinner table with family and guests and discussing with passion, not anger. I think we can discuss things on the AML list with passion. Your passion may not be the same as someone elses passion, so by all means discuss it. But lets leave the accusations and anger in someone elses livingroom. Tracie Laulusa - ----- Original Message ----- > I liked seminary donuts. > [snip] > > I'm not talking about likes or dislikes here. And I'm not talking about > judging the artists work. I'm talking about judging the artist himself. Is > that what we're doing here when we put labels on other people's work? > > Anna Wight - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 10:51:53 -0700 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff At 05:52 PM 11/5/01, you wrote: >As a writer, I am getting terrified of you people. On a list like this one, there is bound to be a certain amount of elitism. Ignore it and follow your own vision. You can never please the critics. Write to your true audience instead. You will do much good in the world. Barbara R. Hume Provo, Utah - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 12:09:26 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff Anna Wight wrote: >I liked seminary donuts. >Which has brought me to a conclusion. >As a writer, I am getting terrified of you people. Uh oh. >And I'm not talking about >judging the artists work. I'm talking about judging the artist himself. = Is >that what we're doing here when we put labels on other people's work? Right! Right! The two things are inextricably linked. Judging a work of art as harshly = as we seem inclined to do almost automatically implies a judgment of the = writer and of those who like the work of that writer. Anna's absolutely = right about all this. I have certain aesthetic tastes. I like hard hitting stuff and I like = dark stuff and I like esoteric academic stuff, and I don't like romances = and I don't much care for musicals. I dislike happy endings, and I = dislike love stories. These are all aesthetic judgments. I also don't = hunt, and dislike the annual Utah deer hunt. This is also an aesthetic = judgment; indeed, it pretty much has to be, because I eat beef. None of = this makes me a better person than folks who have different tastes.=20 Did Saturday's Warrior cause folks to marry unwisely? I very much doubt = it. Did Saturday's Warrior reflect and contribute to a culture that, in = some instances, encourages a kind of inadequately reflective approach to = courtship? That case seems a bit stronger. Did Saturday's Warrior do = good in the world? I can name 50 people who would testify that it did. = So what's the final moral tally on that work of art? Way beyond my = ability to quantify. You'd need to be, oh, say, God. Which is why he = gets to make those judgments. I didn't like Warrior. But I will = certainly defend it, just as I will defend sitcoms, romance novels and = gangsta rap. =20 Now, I won't defend those works aesthetically, probably. I may well = disagree with how truthfully those works portray humankind, or how = interesting they are, or how witty, or how compelling. Where I'll defend = them is from the charge that they're immoral. Most art works mostly do = good.=20 And here's the easy part: we get to decide how we'll respond to something = like Warrior. We get to teach our children how to discern and appropriatel= y respond to the complex of messages imbedded into that text, or any text. = Seeing a film or a play, or reading a novel does not and never has = deprived us of agency. =20 Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 17:58:25 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Moderator Edict on Fluff Folks, Several recent posts have raised some very good questions about the relationship between moral and esthetic judgments, criticism and taste, etc. These are all important questions--the type AML-List exists to explore--and I very much want to see the discussion continue. However, I also see a real danger that we could get into territory that violates List guidelines related to judging people and their motives rather than responding to their posts, and/or leave a lot of people feeling upset and/or offended. Therefore, in light of my recent resolve to react promptly in situations such as this, I hereby lay down the following ground rules: * All of us need to be extremely careful not to make judgments of another person's intelligence, righteousness, etc., based on his/her literary taste. This is particularly important in the case of opinions expressed by List members, but needs to extend as well to tastes in general. * At the same time, people need to be able to state frankly their own reactions to specific literary/artistic works (including inspirational stories and homilies). This includes analysis of the good or evil they think a particular artistic work may do. * We also need to be open to critiquing our methods of conducting critiques--as Eric Samuelsen has done, for example, in urging us not to critique artistic works on moral/ethical grounds. However, we need to avoid any tone of accusation in doing this, and particularly in commenting on others' modes of response. Again, Eric Samuelsen's posts provide a superb model in this regard, which I hope the rest of us can emulate. I'd suggest another rule of thumb that can help us keep the conversation civil: acknowledge early and often that others of intelligence and spiritual worth may arrive at different conclusions from those we ourselves argue. This, of course, should be a given in all our debates; but it is particularly important to emphasize and repeat when opinions are intense about things that matter greatly to people. Thanks to everyone for your contributions. I trust we can continue to have a worthwhile, stimulating, and civil conversation. Jonathan Langford AML-List Moderator - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 18:54:51 -0900 From: Stephen Carter Subject: RE: [AML] God in Fiction I couldn't resist quoting one of the most brilliant scenes in the English language that involves God. We are reading about the Bable fish (a small fish one can insert in one's ear that allows one to understand any language). "It is such a bizarrely imporobable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. "The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' "'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway , isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' "'Oh dear,' says God, "I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing." - -The late and great Douglas Adams Stephen Carter Fairbanks, Alaska - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 01:03:48 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Writers Conference William Morris wrote: > Anybody willing over the next week to give those of us who weren't able to > attend a report? It would be great if those who was there could give us their notes of the sessions they attended. Even though I was the conference tyrant, I would be a poor one to do that, because I didn't attend sessions effectively--coming in late all the time after putting out fires, and not making any attempt to take notes. > Who was the coolest person you met at the conference (i.e. who you hadn't > met before)? Unfortunately, Richard Dutcher and Kenny Kemp were there, otherwise I would have been hands down the winner of that honor. > What was Eric Samuelsen's play like (review please)? Nonexistent. Because of conflicts that arose, Eric was unable to participate. > Is there any chance that we could do the one next year as a teleconference > with satellite locations on the west and east coasts? (I would travel to > LA for an AML teleconference). Yes, there's a chance. A fat one. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:18:29 -0700 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] AML Writer's Conference Marilyn Brown cracks the whip just as well as she cheerleads! She wasn't about to let any speaker go over his/her alloted time. Of course, even she didn't dare interrupt Richard Dutcher. :-) YEA, SHARLEE! Absolutely! I was ALMOST fearless! Just want to make a point here! HOGGING time is the greatest of selfish acts in my book. It is stealing from someone else's time. And TIME is all we have. (And for some people it may be running out.) So those of you gearing up for the MAR 2 meeting! Beware! I will have a whip there, too! After that wonderful writers' conference was over, I wasn't as afraid of Richard Dutcher as at the outset! Maybe I would have blown a whistle after all! He was amenable and even nice. Cheers to everyone and their contributions! Marilyn - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:11:49 -0700 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: RE: [AML] Writers Conference Terry Jeffress reported Paul Bishop as saying: <<>> I am not in that bad of shape. I don't think I actually would die, at least not as a direct result of not writing. However, I do very much feel that unless I am working on a real writing project (not just the marketing crap I turn out at my day job), I would not feel disappointed to die. That is the definition of depression for me personally and something I struggle with regularly: Looking around at the world and at my life and realizing, "I wouldn't be the slightest bit disappointed if I just died right now. I'd miss a few people, but that's it." (Usually those episodes last only for a few days at a time, and then I have a few days of feeling reasonably happy and excited about life. One way I get through the down times is to remind myself that if the flat, despairing feelings ever go for two straight weeks, I will allow myself to go back on Prozac.) The AML writers' conference hit at an interesting time for me personally. Just in the past few weeks, I "finished" the first three chapters of my current project (a missionary memoir aimed at non-LDS readers) and sent them out to some people who agreed to critique them. In the meantime, I've halted my nightly writing routine (9:00 p.m. to about 11:00) while waiting for the critiques, and it's been glorious to have some time for reading. Now most of the critiques have come back, and I can see I am still much farther off the mark than I'd hoped, and I have grave doubts about whether the project can--or should--ever fly at all. Because of my test marketing with a query letter to agents, I know some version of the project could succeed, but I doubt both my own skill and the possible cost to my spiritual integrity. So I am in that stage where I am trying my damndest to talk myself out of continuing, on the grounds that I'm wasting my time, needlessly complicating my life, and channeling my vocational hopes and passions into the wrong place. In the shower last night, I ALMOST managed to completely shrug off the project, and along with that I also fantasized about shrugging off the AML and Irreantum too. But trying to conceive of my life and my identity without a serious creative writing project and related involvements feels like insanity, the same vertiginous feeling I used to get as a kid trying to imagine if there was NOTHING, not even any space. It's impossible to conceive of. I don't understand why I can't be happy just enjoying my wife and kids, food, sleep, other people's novels, plays, memoirs, and films, occasional mundanely satisfying housework, my marketing copy assignments at work, my volunteer work with the AML and Irreantum. I don't understand why I can't be interested in something realistic and attainable, like becoming a veterinarian or a mail carrier or a writer of formulaic fluff for the Mormon market (and even that may well be beyond my capacity). I have tried to fool myself that my creative writing is just a hobby and I should enjoy it on its own merits, but that is stupid because hobbies are relaxing and creative writing is WORK. And it is work in some of the most terrible mental circumstances I can imagine, circumstances in which no one has anything invested in or even CARES whether or not you finish anything worthwhile, circumstances in which the pressure is constant to distort and manipulate your experiences and observations in order to appeal to a worldly audience that includes your own worldly current self, circumstances in which you might even be working against God's purposes--which deep down you don't really want to do--if what you write doesn't clearly share and defend the faith. (It would be the same dilemma if I set my missionary memoir aside and took my novel draft out of the drawer.) Right now I hate writing, and I feel bitter that I have any inclination toward it. While I'm able to logically stop myself short of somehow blaming Heavenly Father and going all passive-aggressive on him, I feel duped by my own ego and disgusted with the way the book industry works. How dare they expect new authors to accomplish such huge tasks without any support? Still, last night after the shower my only two choices seemed to be either going to bed early--perhaps a version of lying down and dying--or starting over again on the memoir (I didn't have the heart to read or do housework). I managed to turn on the laptop and start over again, so I'm feeling a tiny bit better. But I feel like I'm just playing games with myself. My main hope is that at some point I will truly lose interest in it. That is what I pray for, that I can lose interest in it and become satisfied with my current job or something else with a paycheck (sometimes I feel so unethical about my disinterested attitude at work, and I cringe wondering what will happen to me the next time they chop deadwood). Maybe one more draft will finally get it out of my system and I can put it aside without getting that insane vertigo feeling. I have so much material in my house that I want to read--why can't I be content devoting that two hours every evening to reading? I LOVE reading. Writing makes me mad because it takes away from my reading time. It makes me mad because sometimes it gets my hopes up that maybe I'll come up with something worthwhile that can really shake up both non-Mormons and Mormons (if something doesn't shake up the status quo, I don't see the point in reading or writing it--that's why working at the Ensign for six years was almost completely meaningless to me--I felt like a glorified secretary--and why I tried to get the Sunstone editor job, so I could be an agent for helping shake things up). It makes me mad because it's so hard to start a writing session and because even when you do get started you know it's mostly crap that you'll either have to rewrite or throw out. It makes me mad because being actively involved in a writing project takes over everything I observe or read, making me ask how I could fit it into the story or pull off something like it. It makes me mad because writing undermines everything else I do--it makes me want to do only the minimum at work and church and even sometimes in family life so I can conserve time and energy for my own writing projects. And then I end up frittering away most of that hoarded time and energy anyway--unless you count daydreaming as legitimate work--because I am lazy and undisciplined. In reality, opening the AML's mail, keeping the mailing list updated, and shepherding Irreantum through the editorial and production processes are profoundly lazy acts for me. They offer a semblance of literary accomplishment and involvement, yet the tasks are so much easier to do than my own creative writing. If my choice is between clicking open my memoir file--which somehow takes TREMENDOUS effort--and inputting a stack of AML mail, guess which I ALWAYS choose to do first. (And don't even get me started on my abuse of e-mail.) Well, maybe I can take Richard Dutcher's advice to heart and go ahead and write even though it's likely that if I were ever to get something published, I would probably have to repent of it. I suppose my 30 bucks for the writers' conference was a lot cheaper than paying for a therapist by the hour, so I thank the organizers and presenters. But I wish it would have been the national veterinarian convention that I related with so well. Chris Bigelow - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:58:19 -0700 From: "Gae Lyn Henderson" Subject: [AML] Repenting of Stories (was: Fluff) Yes Todd, I agree that repenting of a book or a story is an interesting notion. But it makes so much sense. How are we going to learn if we don't give ourselves permission to make some mistakes? In our culture, where there is so much emphasis on preventing mistakes and avoiding the pain of repentance, we sometimes forget that learning is about going through consequences. God sent us here to earth with the freedom to make mistakes. We tell our children over and over, don't abuse your free agency by choosing wrong. Of course we don't want to see our children suffer. But God allows us to suffer doesn't he? I'm not saying we should advise our children to make mistakes, but we can say, "mistakes are okay. You can repent." Just like Duetcher did. In my son's seminary class, a young woman asked the teacher for permission to do a special activity. The teacher agreed. The young woman asked all the students to spend 20 minutes writing their "last" letter to their parents. The teacher balked--20 minutes? But she confidently asserted, don't worry this will be worth it. So the class labored over these letters to their parents for a long 20 minutes. Then the young woman gathered the letters and ripped them all to shreds, one at a time, with a look of defiance on her face. (My son said that at that point he was pretty disgusted with the whole activity. But wait, it gets worse!) Then, the self-appointed leader said, "now how did you feel when I ripped up your letter to your parents?" My son, the smart aleck, said "fine, I felt fine." But others said, "it made me angry--I was upset." Then the girl took a deep breath and delivered her long-awaited "message." She said, "now you know how the general authorities feel when we break the commandments." When my son told my husband and me this story we laughed and laughed. What an odd object lesson! And what a strange conclusion! But the more I think about it, the more (unfortunately) typical I think this girl's attitude is. The reason not to sin is because we will make someone else upset, someone else angry. The reason not to do wrong is to keep appearances up. The reason not to sin is to keep everyone happy. (I guess there is something reasonable in there about destroying something valuable. But the emphasis shouldn't be on pleasing others!) This is a very sad commentary on the way we inculcate values in our culture. We need to emphasize authenticity, not playing to the crowd, even if it is the leaders of the church! That means we shouldn't be afraid to offend someone, or make them mad, or even make a mistake, if necessary, so that we can grow and become what we are meant to become. (I'm preaching to myself.) This applies to art and literature just as much as it does to life. I think writers do evolve, over time, into saying what they really mean. [Gae Lyn Henderson] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 15:20:59 -0700 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff REWIGHT wrote: > > I'm not talking about likes or dislikes here. And I'm not talking about > judging the artists work. I'm talking about judging the artist himself. Is > that what we're doing here when we put labels on other people's work? No. Doug Stewart is, and has been, a good friend of mine since the early 70's. He knows what I think of his ground-breaking musical, _Saturday's Warrior_. I've directed the play and, while directing it, told him what I thought its faults were (all faults dealing with the plays "fluffiness." He's convinced enought, however, of his mission in life that he pays absolutely no attention to my comments and continues to produce shows that I consider so much fluff. You see, in direct opposition to what I may say and think, he has the audience on his side - -- he's written the most popular LDS-realted theatrical production in history. When, personally, I judge a work to be fluff, I harbor no ill feelings for the person who created it. The two are quite different. Thom - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 18:28:32 EST From: Turk325@aol.com Subject: [AML] Talmage Biography? Can anyone recommend--or even name--a good biography of James E. Talmadge? Thank you. Kurt Weiland. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:29:44 -0700 From: "J. Scott Bronson" Subject: Re: [AML] AML Writer's Conference On Mon, 5 Nov 2001 14:43:45 -0700 "Sharlee Glenn" writes: > And finally, what is it with all these big, bearded men!? Well, I don't know about the other gentlemen, but for me, it's the cheapest and easiest way to hide a double chin. scott - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 18:14:56 -0800 (PST) From: "R.W. Rasband" Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff - --- REWIGHT wrote: > I liked seminary donuts. > > Which has brought me to a conclusion. > > As a writer, I am getting terrified of you people. > > I can see that whatever I write, if it does get published, will be taken > and > torn apart, called 'fluff' or worse "spiritual pornography." > > Because it seems some people on this list are in the pursuit of finding > perfection. And it must be perfect to them. > > So if I write a scene that I might have been inspired to write, and if > it > touches someone, I'm fine, until it doesn't touch someone else. Then > it's > labeled spiritual pornography. > > If I write something that doesn't agree with someone else's concept of > doctrine, then it's fluff. > > If it isn't in the realm of experience that everyone on the list has > had, > then it's a lie. > I'm easy. I like "My Turn on Earth." I like "The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd." I like "God's Army" more than I originally thought (I changed my mind after I saw Dutcher's excellent Mormon noir "Brigham City.) Good faith by the artist (he or she is not just trying to make a buck: they want to say something real) goes a long way with me. One thing to remember before you pick up a pen to judge other people's work is Sturgeon's Law (after the science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon): 90 percent of everything is bad. This includes everything you yourself write: it includes High Modernist Art as well as less pretentious work. We need to have perspective and compassion when we criticize, especially the work of other Latter-day Saints. Otherwise you end up like the title character in David Sedaris' short story "Front Row Center With Thaddeus Bristol", a bitter drama critic who gives savage reviews to grade school Christmas pageants. "Fluff" doesn't offend me. Like I say, I'll take intentions into account. What offends me is close-mindedness. Many Latter-day Saints think "The Simpsons" and "Saturday Night Live" are evil. This attitude is much more dangerous than fluff. [R.W. Rasband] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 10:14:55 -0600 From: James Picht Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff Todd Petersen wrote: > People can accidently cause some kinds of car accidents, yet they are still "responsible" for them. I think the same is true of literature. An author may not mean for her work to be taken in a particular way, but if people do, and there is a problem as a result, then the author could be seen as negligent, though it's hard to say just when that might happen. Somewhere between the road to Hell that's paved with good intentions and the means that are justified by their ends, we find the intelligent exercise of judgement and the "reasonable man" standard. I believe that we're responsible for our intentions and for the accidents that we could have reasonably anticipated had we given our actions a bit of thought. If I write a novel with malice in my heart, I expect I'll be held responsible for the malice, even if the novel turns out to be inocuous or uplifting. If I write it carelessly but with the best of intentions, I expect I'll be held responsible for the problems I caused that I could have avoided had I been more careful. But the mere fact that people are harmed by my novel doesn't make me negligent. Only a god can be held to a standard of strict liability, because only a god can foresee every consequence of an artistic choice. That's an unreasonable standard for mere mortals. > Can any of us imagine a situation in which we would find ourselves trying to repent of a story we've told, a book we've published? I really can't. I know the world is full of unreasonable people who might find in my work recipes for mayhem or dissolution, even if I've written a compendium on sugar cookies. I write for the reasonable reader. And what's a reasonable reader? Well, one who thinks like I do. I know that I'm reasonably moral (but then, isn't every man by his own standards moral?), reasonably intelligent (82% of us believe we're above average), and reasonably reasonable, so isn't my main responsibility is to learn my craft and to be honest in my work? It's in this that I judge the work of others - craft and reason. I judge some art to be bad - not because I think the artist is immoral, but because I think she's failed to learn her craft, because she's used it carelessly, because she's placed unreasonable expectations on the consumer to find the good in a minefield. When I condemn a work of art (and I do condemn some - I'm a human, I judge, I decide what I want to let into my mind and what I want to keep out - if I don't make judgements, I'll fritter away my time on every bit of flotsam that comes my way), I condemn the artist's judgement at the time he created it, not his character. And I may be wrong. I may not be the reasonable man who should set the standard (don't worry, I'm only speaking hypothetically). All art involves a meeting of minds between artist and art consumer. If you're damaged by my novel, might not the fault be yours, not mine? Might it not be the reader who's sometimes called to repentance, not the writer? If your heart is filled with malice, mightn't you twist my virtuous words to create your own disaster? I don't believe that art is intrinsically good or bad. Rather, it's a form of conversation, and as in all conversation, context is crucial. So is the skill of the conversants. What comes of it can be good or bad, but that isn't decided unilaterally. Art has no intrinsic value, Harlow's cogent view to the contrary, but a contextual one. If one assumes as Harlow does that one of the conversants is God, one simply sets a special context that has to be applied to every act of every sentient being. If art has intrinsic value, so does every word that I utter to every person I meet, every glance and sigh that escapes me during faculty meeting. The good and bad in all this is just to much for my poor mind to handle. Jim Picht - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 09:35:58 -0700 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] ALLRED, "For the Strength of the Hills" / CLAWSON, _YankeeStory_ At first I thought Benson was stuttering. But then--wow, Benson, what a STORY! I really had no idea you had such a history. Maybe it's just me, but I think this is SUCH INTERSTING STUFF! (I guess I'm the one who usually picks up on the unknown blood, gore and torture of our people of so many years ago. But I had no idea all of this was in your background! Does it come out in any of your novels that I've missed? Marilyn Brown - ----- Original Message ----- From: Benson Parkinson To: Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 9:57 AM Subject: [AML] ALLRED, "For the Strength of the Hills" / CLAWSON, _YankeeStory_ A quibble with Marny's post: >>> marnyparkin@earthlink.net 11/05/01 12:42PM >>> There were no battlements in the canyon, and we did not burn SLC as we evacuated (though we did evacuate the citizenry to Provo). >>>>>>>>>>> There were battlements in Echo Canyon, and I understand their remains are still there. A lot of Utah militia camped up there all winter, my g-g-grandfather Samuel Rose Parkinson with them. Another of my g-g-grandpas, Hiram Clawson, wrote an outlandish parody of the U.S. Army called _Yankee Story_ that was printed up and mailed to the soldiers on the plains. I'd guess it had some little significance in the history of Mormon humor. The Yankee dialect is so thick it's hard for modern readers to even follow. Maybe we'll have to publish a translation. My wife's g-g-g-grandpa Joseph Taylor was in one of the companies sent out to harass (but not directly harm) the U.S. Army on the plains. He was captured by the army and tortured--poisoned and nearly suffocated with smoke in a windowless hut--but finally escaped, in his stocking feet, with bullets whizzing by. He wasn't able to read for ten years afterwards because of the damage to his eyes. There's probably not an eirier image in all of Mormon history than the army marching through Salt Lake City, which was empty except for sentries in the shadows, ready to put fire to the buildings if the army turned to the right or left. All of northern Utah was in Provo--a boy named Horace Hall Cummings was born in the granary of my g-g-grandpa Elijah Billingsley. Naturally I've always felt pretty enthusiastic about the story of the Utah War, and pretty proud we held the U.S. Army at bay without shooting anyone. Ben Parkinson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 18:46:17 -0700 From: "Scott Parkin" Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff Anna Wight wrote: > As a writer, I am getting terrified of you people. Don't be. Write the stories that move you to write; if you're true to your own vision of what makes a piece worthwhile, then the opinions of the people in this list (or in any other forum) are irrelevant. Tell the stories you need to tell in the manner that seems most appropriate to you. Popularity is a different issue. I don't think light or simple or incompletely told truths are inherently soul-destroying or intellect crushing. They are what they are--simple, incompletely told truths. If a reader is unable to recognize that those stories are limited, the reader bears some responsibility for that inability. I was talking with list member Russell Asplund about this issue and he offered an interesting analogy. (Apologies, Russell, if this is an incomplete rendering of your excellent analogy.) Yes, some stories are fluff, are cotton candy for the soul with little nutritive value. If one attempted to eat nothing but cotton candy, one would soon become malnourished and their health would suffer. The negative effects of malnutrition on attention span and intellectual function are quite disturbing (not to mention the increased likelihood of failure of the organs of the body). If one continued to eat nothing but cotton candy, one could eventually wither and even die. At the same time, a diet of nothing but steak is equally dangerous. While it certainly has more food value and a wider range of necessary nutrients, it is still an incomplete food and a diet limited to steak will also have negative health effects (how 'bout that scurvy--a fatal disease if not treated). As will a diet limited only to feta cheese or spinach or rice or apples or any other single food. Clearly a diet of nothing but a single food is a bad idea; a healthy diet is a mixture of many different foods that fulfill many different nutritive needs. Even cotton candy fulfills a part of the body's whole nutritive requirements, and in some cases is a superior source of necessary calories. Food also fills other needs such as comfort, satiety, and craving. Sometimes I want to eat popcorn at a movie instead of nachos or Red Vines(TM) or filet mignon (though I *always* have my precious Diet Coke(TM) with a splash of fruit punch if possible--it's so perky). Sometimes cotton candy is the food that makes me feel good and right with my surroundings. It provides me with comfort that another food does not or cannot. Chocolate is the number one comfort food in the U.S. and a good cheesecake is one of the fastest ways to restore my personal sense of well-being--certainly not at every meal, but once in a while it's just the right answer. When my mother had insulin reactions (she was diabetic and didn't pay enough attention to her diet, and so had a number of insulin reactions over the years) the best thing for her was orange juice to provide quick sugar for the insulin to work on, followed by a well-balanced meal. One time she was sufficiently incoherent that I couldn't get her to take orange juice--she was barely conscious and couldn't swallow except reflexively. When I tried to give her the juice, all it did was gag her and induce violent coughing and retching that used more of her dwindling energy. The next best thing was hard candy (or even cotton candy) with its more complex but longer lasting sugars--but most importantly with its convenient package. I could place the lozenge between her cheek and teeth where it wouldn't fall down her throat, but where her saliva could still dissolve it. The trickle of sugar down her throat was small enough that her reflexive swallows kept her from gagging. While it took her longer to recover, it was a remedy that I could administer quickly and with a minimum of risk (this was more than twenty years ago--before the days of tubes of fructose gel that could be rubbed on the gums or inside the cheeks). Once stabilized, a good meal brought her back to health, balance, and clarity. But the recovery started with candy--in that case, the right food for her context. As readers, sometimes we need lighter fare to find comfort or acceptance or equilibrium. That's part of why I have a hard time labelling stories like The Master's Touch (violin) or Footprints (in the sand) or the bridge story as tools of evil. They have good and valid--and sometimes even critical--uses for different people at different times and contexts. Margaret Young's friend comes to mind, as does my mother's need once for candy before meat. So while I agree that a constant diet of nothing but fluff is dangerous to both the mind and the spirit, I think the inverse is also true--that one can over-indulge in more meaty literary fare. And there are times when fluff is the right thing to restore one's cognitive or emotional balance. As with everything, it's a balance of many things, moderation and diversity in consumption that leads to overall health. > So if I write a scene that I might have been inspired to write, and if it > touches someone, I'm fine, until it doesn't touch someone else. Then it's > labled spiritual pornography. A hammer is a tool of carpentry until it becomes a tool of destruction or murder. The label can change without in any way changing the original nature of the thing itself--or its creator's intent. But the use to which the user puts a tool (or a story) can change from day to day or user to user. Hard as it is to accept, even our good and well-intentioned fiction can in fact become spiritual pornography for the reader who has chosen to use it as such. In that case, I believe the responsibility lies more with the reader than the author. But I also believe the author has some responsibility for their own intent. I wouldn't worry about the label, and I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that a good story can serve an ignoble end. Your responsibility is to your own conscience and your god. But that doesn't mean that critics can't or shouldn't critique, and it doesn't mean that they aren't right when they criticize. Every reader is a critic, and every reader will react differently to different stories. It's all part of the game of writing for an audience. > I'm not talking about likes or dislikes here. And I'm not talking about > judging the artists work. I'm talking about judging the artist himself. Is > that what we're doing here when we put labels on other people's work? This is a tougher issue for me. I think sometimes we do go over from judging a work to judging the author, but that's a part of our daily life and experience, and is a part of literary criticism. When we send our works out into the public, we invite comment and criticism and even judgement. It's the cost of having the temerity to think that people should pay money (or spend time) to read what we have to say. It's a hazard of sharing an opinion, be it in the form of a post to this list or the form of a short story or essay or book--some will find your opinion to be inadequate to their own views and experience, will find your thoughts to be fluffy, trivial, or unworthy of comment. That's just the way it is. You can't let your gut get tied in a knot because of it. I can't say that someone who refers to my fiction as spiritual pornography is wrong--that's a judgement of the reader's own context and mindset, and has always been a relative judgement rather than an absolute one. Heaven knows that the story I put into the last Irreantum was a particularly fluffy little piece, though I think it stops short of spirit-porn. Then again, I never claimed any elevated literary pretention with the story; it was intended as a light wish-fulfillment piece and I think it served that end effectively. I do cringe at the attempts to render absolute judgements on certain works; I don't think we're equipped to make that absolute judgement, and I don't think there's much value in trying. Unless we can understand the full context of another's viewpoint, any judgement is incomplete and speculative (there was an interesting story in the latest Irreantum that touched on that idea--I think it was called "Godsight" and it was a very thought-provoking and creative piece that I both enjoyed and have a minor philosophical quibble with; but that's a different discussion). At the same time it is not only right to make personal judgements, but is both necessary and a commandment. A tough line to tread, but one that we must tread if we want to understand both ourselves and each other. But that's just my opinion. Scott Parkin - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #508 ******************************